I Just Wanna
by ChloeKilljoy
Summary: The members of MCR and some other bands and some OCs as teens at my college
1. Chapter 1

**Chapter One**

April 5th

"Mikey, what's wrong now?" Gerard sounded impatient. I looked up from my sketchbook and sure enough, Mikey was looking upset at something, Gee was looking like his lid was gonna blow, and Frankie and Ray shared an exasperated "here-we-go-again" expression. Mikey was looking at the ground and mumbled something.

I couldn't help but think this would be an awesome scene to draw. I mean, they were all standing so they could be seen, and it was a scene you could really feel the emotion in; Gee was looking at Mikey and leaning on his mic stand, Mikey was looking at the ground with his bass hanging off his shoulders, Frankie was in the corner, trying to stay out of the way and was fiddling with his guitar, and Ray was over at the sound system, trying to look busy even though the sound was fine.

"..feel too good." Gee sighed. "Mikes, just because Bob ain't here it doesn't mean we can skip our session. Anyway, we need the practice."

"Actually guys, time's almost up. Let's run through a couple of songs, and leave it there, 'kay?" Frankie piped up from the corner, checking the clock.

I watched as they counted in to the song, and Ray started strumming. A shiver ran down my spine; this is one of my favourite songs, but every time they play it I can't stop watching Mikey. The Ways never tell anyone what inspires any of their lyrics, but I could sense an extraordinary sense of brotherly love and closeness. It was chilling.

I woke up out of my daydream to find Mikey looking at me with a strange expression on his face. I blushed and went back to my sketches. They would want to see what I've been drawing, and I can't let them see it was him. I quickly changed on to a clean sheet of paper and started drawing some random doodles which soon developed into full blown characters.

"And if the sun comes up will it tear the skin right off our bones?..." Gee's voice cut into my brain like an ice cold knife. I loved this song but sometimes, Gerard's voice creeped me out. It could be so piercing, so sharp it was almost deadly. I shivered again, and closed my eyes, listening to them play.

"I'll never let them hurt you, not tonight…" A small movie was playing in my head – a boy hiding in a corner, shielding a girl, whispering sweet comforting words to her as a shadow descended on them. "Struck down before our prime, before we get off the floor…" The shadow attacks, pouncing on the boy, pulling him from the girl, who by some miracle escapes. And as the song closes, "Stake me before the sun goes down." I sank deeper into my dream, watching the girl fight her way out of a group of shadows surrounding her, their growls and roars getting louder and louder until-

I jumped, crying out as I wake from my nap. I saw Ray trying to pull an amp from the room, and he glanced at me. "Sorry, Chloe, didn't mean to wake you." I yawned as he carried on dragging the amp out, and looked around to find my sketchbook. I felt a flutter of panic in my stomach when I couldn't see it, and started searching frantically.

"Hey, Chlo, this what you're looking for?" Frankie came over to me and held out my sketchbook. I looked up at him, and he shrugged. "It was over there by the door, didn't want it to get ruined when we were packing up."

I sighed. "Thanks Frankie, did you have a look at them?" "Nah, I've literally just picked it up." He laughed. "I think I saw Mikes having a look through it before though." My stomach turned to ice, and I tried to keep my voice lever as I replied. "Really? Ah cool." "Yeah, he seemed pretty impressed. But then, that's no surprise is it?" He stuck his tongue out at me and walked off to help pack away. I looked around and saw Mikey over by Ray at the sound system, both with their back turned to me. As I walked up to them I heard them talking in hushed tones.

"…shouldn't think anything of it. Stop worrying." "But Ray, what if-" Mikey noticed me, nudged Ray and said "Hey Chloe, what's up?" Ray turned around glanced at me and raised his eyebrows before walking away. Mikey looked back at him then at me.

"Hi Mikey, Frankie told me you'd had my sketchbook earlier." He blushed a little and looked down at the floor, his long black hair covering his eyes and glasses. "Sorry, I didn't mean to pry, I was just curious to see what you'd drawn." I smiled at him, trying to appear relaxed.

"That's ok. What did you think? Did you like them?" He glanced up at me again, then took the sketchbook off me and began flicking through it. "Yeah they're awesome. I wish I was as good as you and Gee, you make it look so easy." He pouted a little. "But yeah, theyre really cool. I really like the one of the unicorn, and I actually really like the picture you drew of me…" He trailed off blushing and looking at the picture of him, and I looked down at the floor. There was a slight awkward pause before I took the sketchbook back off him and said "Thanks," and walked away refusing to look at him.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter Two**

April 9th

I was woken from my daydream by someone tapping me on the cheek with a roll of sheets of paper. I jumped violently and looked around to see Gee standing next to the table I was sitting at holding the paper. I sighed and cursed at him.

"Ah Lucifer, Gee you scared the fucking life out of me, what the hell was that for?" He smirked at me. "Come on, Chlo, you need to be less obvious. You wouldn't want our dear Mikes to catch you now, would you?" He giggled and easily dodged the hand I carelessly flipped in his direction. "Seriously though, how long were you gonna sit there staring at him?"

I sighed. "Gee, what's wrong with me? All I can think about is him, even when I manage to distract myself for a millisecond my mind finds a way to get back to him. I'm actually getting fed up of it." I looked over at Gerard hoping he would find a way to comfort me, to say it would all go away soon. Instead he had an awkward expression on his face, and oddly a slight look of guilt. "Gee, what's up, what's wrong?" He looked me in the eyes and said "Look, I don't know how to tell you this, but it's what I came here to do." He sighed and I felt my stomach twist horribly.

"Chlo, Mikes has a girlfriend."

Those four words made my heart stop, made my mind go all fuzzy, and made my eyes fill with tears. "He- he has a girlfriend?" "Yeah, I'm really sorry Chloe but I thought it would be better for you if you found out now than in a couple of days…" I looked at the ground, the tears in my eyes jumping out onto the bench I was sitting on, my breath coming in short sharp gasps. I felt Gee's arms slide around me and his head resting on mine. We stayed like that for a while, Gee cuddling me and whispering "It's ok, I'm here it's ok, shhh…" over and over in my ear, and eventually I calmed down enough to sit up, wipe my eyes and say in a choked voice "You're right, it's better that I know now, at least I won't make a fool of myself anymore." Gee looked at me and said "I know it's hard for you, 'spesh since you guys are really good friends, but maybe this will help you get past it. I mean, none of this not doing you any good, you've gotten really skinny, and apparently you're always falling asleep in class now." I looked at him guiltily. "Come on, lets go get some coffee, eh?" He this always makes me smile, and this time was no exception. "Alright, just as long as the coffee's for you, you know I can't stand it." We stood up and walked away to the nearest Starbucks, both of us unaware that the rest of the group had been watching from another table not too far away.

We stood in the queue for a few minutes before getting served. Gee ordered his usual; three espressos. The cashier looked at me. "Anything for you today?" I looked up. "Uh no, I'm good… Actually yeah, I'll have a caramel hot chocolate with cream. Large." I smiled at Gerard, who looked impressed. "Seriously? This is the first time you've ordered something since like, forever…" I giggled. "You were right Gee, since this whole business with Mikes I've barely eaten. Maybe this will help me get past him." He put his arm around me and squeezed, laughing. "I'm glad you're feeling better Chlo, now you can get back to being friends with my bro." The cashier snorted, and walked off. Gee looked at her and shouted at her. "Hey you, nobody cares what you think, just get out drinks and shut the fuck up, yeah?" "Gee, don't cause any trouble, they'll kick us out again." I muttered. We spent the rest of the time waiting for our drinks, talking between us quietly and glaring at the cashier from time to time. When our drinks were ready we got out of there as soon as possible, and we ran into Ray. "Hey guys, skipping class again?" He gave us a sarcastic, disapproving look then got in the middle of us and draped his arms across our shoulders and spotted our cups. "Chloe, you let him have coffee again? And you have a drink?" "Yep, we're celebrating." I smiled at him. "Really? What's the occasion?"

I looked over at Gee, who nodded. "I'm officially giving up on Mikey!" I laughed and looked up at Ray, who looked shocked. "Giving up on Mikey? Why?" "Cos he's got a girlfriend silly, he clearly doesn't care about me the way I want him to." Ray looked over at Gee, who again just nodded, and said "Right, that sounds fair enough. Shall we head back to college? We could just hang in the Common Room or outside on the field, it's such a nice day." So we started walking to college, which was only a few minutes away.

When we got back to college, we decided to sit outside on the field. We sat there talking about anything and everything, and then Ray started talking to Gee about how they could improve as a band, and what the next step was. I tuned out and got out one of my sketchbooks, flicking through my old pictures, thinking about destroying the pictures I drew of Mikes. Gee caught me looking at it and was about to say something when someone pounced on him, knocking him onto his back.

"GEEEEEE! IT'S GEE! IT'S GEE! IT'S GEEEEEEE!" "AH FRANK! GET THE FUCK OFF ME!"

We watched as Frankie pushed Gerard onto the floor faced-down, and sat on his back, and Gee started screaming at him to get off or else.

"Hey guys." We turned around and saw Mikey standing there. My insides froze and my heart pounded against my ribcage, leaving such a pain that I though it was shattering my ribs one by one. Ray said hi to Mikey then tried to pull Frankie off Gee, leaving Mikey and me. "Hey Chloe, you ok? You don't look too happy, what's up?" I refused to look at him. "Ah, there's nothing wrong Mikes, I'm ok, just tired." I looked at the ground and started pulling up grass, and I saw Mikey's shadow move towards the mass that was the Gee/Frankie/Ray pile, and heard cries of "Aww Mikes, no fair, I was having fun!" "Thanks Mikey, Gee was turning purple under there." "FRANK I'M GONNA KILL YOU!" I looked up in time to see Frankie sprinting off, closely followed by a very red-faced Gee.

"Well, certainly looks like you guys are having fun, can I join in?"


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter Three**

"Aww Mikes, no fair, I was having fun!" "Thanks Mikey, Gee was turning purple under there." "FRANK I'M GONNA KILL YOU!" I looked up in time to see Frankie sprinting off, closely followed by a very red-faced Gee.

"Well, certainly looks like you guys are having fun, can I join in?"

I looked around to see where the silky girlish voice had come from, to see a girl standing there. She had longish black hair, and wore a Pantera band shirt with black skinny jeans and Converse, and had a black shoulder bag full of books and folders. Mikey looked up and walked over to her, put his arm around her waist and said "Guys, this is Alicia. Alicia this is Ray and Chloe, you've met Frankie and the guy chasing him is my big brother Gerard." He pointed us out individually. "And you know Bob already, he's the drummer in our band." "It's real nice to meet you guys, I've heard a lot about you." She saw I had my sketchbook out and came over to have a look. "Mikes told me you were awesome at drawing, do you mind if I have a look?" I felt a flitter of panic in my stomach and looked over to Ray for support, who said "Chlo doesn't really like us looking at her stuff until she's ready to show us, for her drawing's really personal and private. She wouldn't show any of us anything for months when we were first friends. But then again, we were the same with our music, weren't we Mikey?" Mikey laughed. "Haha, yeah we all thought we were so crappy that we were really embarrassed the first time Chloe came along to a practice." He smiled looking at me, and I turned away and started packing up my things. "I gotta run, I think I see my Biology tutor and she can't know I'm skipping." As I started to walk away, I heard Mikey yelling after me "You're skipping? Again? You can't keep doing that, you'll lose your grades!" But I just kept going.

As I was walking Frankie ran past me, and then doubled up when he saw I was crying. "Woah woah woah woah, what's with the tears? Chlo what the hell ha-" He was cut off as Gee barrelled into him from behind and yelled "Got you, you motherfucker!" He started to hit Frankie playfully but stopped when Frank muttered something to him. He turned around and saw me sitting behind a tree crying quietly, and ran over to me. "Hey, what's going on? Where did this come from?"

Frankie came and sat on my other side, and I just sat there crying. Gee turned to see where I had been walking from, saw Mikey, Ray and that girl, and you could almost see the light flick on in his head. He looked at me and gave me another hug, and muttered gently "I thought we were celebrating? Getting over him and saying 'fuck you' to the world?" Frankie looked back, saw the group and said "Hey, who's the new chick? New friend?" "No, dumbfuck, that's Mikey's new girlfriend, the bitch." Gee said to him. It felt nice to hear Gee call her a bitch, even though I knew it was just for my sake. I calmed down and said "I don't even know why I'm so upset, like you said, moving on, fuck you world…" I sighed and wiped at my eyes, stood up and said "You guys can go back to the group now, it's ok." I walked away again, not expecting them to follow.

Thankfully they didn't. It would look weird if they suddenly disappeared with me, and they knew I didn't want Mikey to know I was upset. I just walked around the town for a while, and eventually went back to my old hiding place, where I used to spend all my free time before I met the band.

I sat there for a while, just sitting there. I didn't know how much time had passed, when someone came around the corner and found me hiding inside the trees.

"Hey, thought you might be here." It was Mikey.

I made myself laugh, and unfortunately it sounded false and forced. "Mikey, you found me. I shouldn't be surprised, you're the only one who knows about this place." He studied my face. "What's going on? We used to be best friends, and now you won't even talk to me properly." I sighed and started to deny it, but he cut in. "Don't even bother saying you're fine, saying there's nothing wrong, 'cos I've seen it. You've gotten real skinny, you get no sleep and now you walk away from us like we mean nothing to you. What the hell's gotten into you?"

I sat there looking at him. I'd never seen him this angry before, and I guess then it really sank in just how worried about me he was.

I had to tell him.

"Look, Mikey, this is really hard for me. I'm just gonna come out and say it and I'd appreciate it if you didn't interrupt me. OK?" He nodded and I sighed again and braced myself.

"Mikey, I like you. And I mean really like you. I have for a while now, and it's been destroying me from the inside out. And now you have a girlfriend, I had hoped that it would help me get past all of this, and it probably will but it just really hurts right now, ok? And I don't think it's a good idea for us to hang out any more. Not just me and you, but the rest of the guys too. It'll just make things harder." I fell silent and Mikey looked at the ground.

"Chloe, I had no idea. Why didn't you ever tell me?" "It wasn't important, you didn't like me the way I wanted you to and it would have made things awkward." I paused, hoping I wouldn't upset him.

"Mikey, I just need to be left alone for a while. 'Kay?" He nodded, looking sad, and he opened his mouth. "And, no, I don't want you to tell the others where I am. Don't tell them you've seen me either, I'll come talk to them when I'm ready." He nodded again and stood up to leave. "Chloe I'm sorry, is this what you were so upset about before?" I froze and looked up at him. "What?" "Before, at lunch, when you were with Gee. You were really upset and he was hugging you. I wanted to come over and help but Frankie said I shouldn't… this is why, isn't it?" I looked away from him again. "Maybe…" Mikey sighed, and said "Right, well if you really want us to leave you alone, we will. But please don't be gone long. We're all your friends, and we will be when you want to come back. And I know I don't just speak for myself when I say we're gonna miss you." He turned and walked away, and I stayed in my little hiding place for a while longer, before walking out and heading home.


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter Four**

As soon as I walked through the door, I burst into tears. I couldn't believe I'd actually done it, I'd told him. But now, I had no friends. I couldn't stay with Gee and the others, it would be too awkward and painful. I looked around my small, empty house and knew what I had to do.

Thank God I lived alone.

A couple of hours later, I heard a knock at the door. I jumped guiltily, then carried on. I ignored the person knocking at the door, until they called out.

"Chloe, I know you're in there. Come on, let me in." It was Gee. I sighed, and went over to the door. I couldn't do this to him, he was one of my closest friends. As soon as I opened the door and saw him standing there with a look of hurt and confusion, the tears sprang back to my eyes and I launched myself into his arms. After a couple of minutes I let him in.

"What's with the bags, Chloe, going somewhere?" I looked back at my bags. "Have you seen Mikey yet?" Gee shook his head. "Well, I can't stay here now. I told him everything, and I think that if I stay away from you guys it'll be easier to get over him. Then I realised I don't actually have any other friends here, no family, nothing to keep me here. I'm leaving town." Gerard looked around at the almost empty house. "Well, I can't argue with you there, you'll just be miserable if you stay…" "You know, I would ask you to come with me. But I can't ask you to leave Mikey. You guys are closer than anyone else and I don't want to put you in an awkward position." I looked at him and he looked away. "You're right. It's awful, but I couldn't leave him." There was a slight pause, then I sighed and said "Can you help me load this into the car?" He nodded and did so.

Soon, everything was packed, and there was nothing to stop me from leaving. Well, almost.

"You know, everyone's gonna be upset that you never even said goodbye." I turned around to look at Gee, who was standing behind me with his arms crossed. I had a flash of an idea.

"Is there any way I could say goodbye to them without him being there?" Gee sighed. "No. You know he'd be the most upset that you just upped and left." "Then I can't do it. I'm sorry." He looked down at the ground. "It's probably best you don't tell them you saw me, too. I'll write a note and you can say I'd already gone when you got here." Gerard just nodded, still looking at the ground. I quickly ran inside, searched the empty shell of a house for a pen and paper, and wrote:

'I'm sorry. You all know what has been getting to me recently, and I've decided I can't stay. It would be too difficult and awkward, and I just can't do this anymore. You guys were the only thing keeping me here, and now I'm losing you there's no point in me staying and hurting myself and everyone around me. I'll see you in another life."

I signed my name and a kiss, turned to leave, and then wrote on impulse "Merci pour le venin" at the bottom. It was a joke between us; we had all taken a couple of weeks out of college and gone on a random trip to France, and while there Frankie (who was supposedly fluent in French) had ordered us some drinks, and when the waitress brought out something completely wrong, he got mad and got in an argument, and as we left he turned and shouted to her "Merci pour le venin" and stormed out, leaving the rest of us in hysterics. I smiled to myself at the memory, and wiped away my tears as I walked back out the door with the note. I handed it to Gee, who read it, saw my late addition and pulled me into a tight hug.

I don't remember how long we were like that for, but eventually we pulled apart, and I got in the driving seat of my car. I got all ready to go, and then turned to look at Gee. "Please don't try to contact me. I'll change my number, my email, everything. I'll just disappear." Gee just looked at me, so I smiled and said "I'll come to all your shows when you're famous." This made him smile, making it just a little easier to leave.

I pulled out of my drive, and drove off into unchartered waters.


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter Five**

October 20th

I've been thinking about this for a while now. I think the time is right, and hopefully everything will be better now. I know I'm much better now.

Well, wish me luck.

October 25th

It was so weird. It never even occurred to me that someone else would be living in my house now. I got a big shock when I pulled up next to my old place and saw the lights on. I nudged the person in the passenger seat of my car. "James, you seeing this?" He leaned forward and looked out the window. "Sure, it's a house with people in it, what about it?" I turned to him. "It's MY house. Who the fuck are they? What the fuck are they doing in my place?"

"Hey, Chlo, calm down will ya?" Alex piped up from one of the back seats. "I mean what did you expect, you said you left the keys outside the house so they could get rid of it, anyway?"

I turned around to look at her. "Well yeah, but I thought they would have known I'd come back. Hell, I even said I would!"

Now it was Keiko's turn to annoy me. She leaned forward and said "What, that 'See you in another life' bullshit? Come on, you expected them to take that seriously? Don't make me laugh." "Hey, if you can't deal, maybe I should just leave you here so you can walk the Lucifer-knows-how-many miles back to your place. 'Kay?" She sat there in silence, glaring at me with her pink eyes. I knew they were contacts, but she would never admit it. I turned back to James. "I'm gonna go in there. Get in the driver's seat and get ready to run, 'kay?" He sighed and called after me as I got out the car. "Chloe, please no more crazy!" I lean over into the open window. "I won't…much." I pull an angelic face and run up the path before they can shout anything else to me.

As soon as I get to the door I hear a burst of laughter. Fucking people in my house, they're gonna get a shock when I tell them to get the fuck out. I was about to slam on the door and start screaming, but then a plan formed in my head. I knocked on the door politely, making sure my back was to the window on the front, and waited for whoever it was to open the door and let me in. I heard them quieten down, so I knocked again. I ran over my plan again in my head; say I was lost, ask to be let in and ask for directions then tell them to get the fuck out. I turned my head slightly and saw the blinds twitching back into their original position. Someone had obviously just checked to see who was at the door, so I turned back to the door waiting for those bastards to appear.

I heard the horn honking behind me, so I turned to see what was going on, and sighed to myself. The girls were messing around, trying to climb into the passenger seat. I shook my head, and heard the door open behind me and a voice.

"Uh, can I help you?"

I felt the hairs on the back of me neck stand up on end, and a shiver pass along my spine. Surely not?

"Hey Mikes, who the fuck is it?" I heard another voice shouting from another room. "I don't know, some weird-" I turned around and looked him in the eye. He stood there staring for a second, trying to figure out who I was. And then his face the same time as the figurative penny. He trailed off and just stood there gaping at me, and I said "Hi Mikes." It went quiet in the other room, and I heard the shuffling of feet as someone else came walking to the door.

"Christ, Mikey, you know you're supposed to invite guests in? What the fuck's wrong with you?" It was Gee. He came up behind Mikey, looked at me over his shoulder, immediately pushed him out of the way and embraced me in a tight bear hug. We stayed like this for a while, long enough for the others to come out of the other room and see who it was, only they didn't see it was me until Gee released me. I stood there awkwardly with the four guys looking at me, then raised my hand and said "Hi" in a feeble quiet voice.

The next thing I knew, Frankie had punched my arm and said "Where the fuck did you go? And why the fuck didn't you take us?" I was about to explain when he cut in with "And don't think you turning up again makes everything ok, I'm still seriously pissed you left." "Strangely enough, Frank, I'd guessed that." I glared at him and rubbed my arm where he had hit me. I looked at them all and said "Guys I'm real sorry I'm left, but I realised a few days ago I really wanted to come back and see you guys. I missed you all." I paused for a sec, realising someone was missing. "No Bob?"

Ray glanced over at Gee, then back at me and said "Nah, we've decided to go our separate ways." And they wouldn't tell me why.

"Oh, well do you guys need a new drummer then? I know someone who would be awesome." They looked at each other, nodded and said "Sure, we'll give 'em a shot. When can they come to practice?" I opened my mouth to reply, but was interrupted by another loud blast on the horn. I looked back, sighed and called "Guys, just get out here, you're gonna break my car!" After a while Alex came running up the path, closely followed by Keiko brandishing a fist and cursing to high Heaven, and then James came walking up the path, hands in the pockets of his hoodie, cool as a cucumber.

"Guys, this is Alex, the weirdo with pink eyes and hair is Keiko, and that's James coming up the path. He's the guy I was talking about." He came up behind me and wrapped his arms around my waist and said "All good things, I hope." I giggled and said "The guys are looking for a new drummer in their band, and I said you would be a good fit. If that's ok, of course."

He shrugged, looked over at the guys and said "Sure, I'm looking for a new band, if you guys' will have me?" Gee and Mikey exchanged a glance and Gee said "Sure, we'll give you a go. But you got big shoes to fill, dude, Bobert was a truly amazing drummer. And you'll be up against another guy we've already lined up. His name's Mike Pedicone, and to be fair, he could bring a lot of new sound to the band and its songs."

They set up an audition for the next day, as they had the old studio booked, and I nudged Mikey and said "You guys been living in my place then?" He looked away from me.

"There's always been at least one of us here, but we got together today as a small celebration." I raised my eyebrows. "Oh? What celebration?" This made him look me in the eyes. "Well, forgive me if I'm wrong, but today is your 18th birthday, is it not?" I nodded. "We were celebrating between ourselves, seeing how we had made plans to go out together. But that went out of the window the same time you did." Oh. He was more pissed at me than Frankie was.

We all went inside and into the living room, where they all had beers on the coffee table I had left behind. I stopped and looked around the room, and jumped a little when Frankie said "Yeah, we left everything as it was when you were gone." He had softened to me a little, but I could tell he was still kinda mad. I wrapped an arm around his shoulders (he was only a little shorter than me but it didn't matter) and said "Thank you Frankie. Thanks for letting me back in too." He smiled at me, and I knew he would be fine with me after today.

Everyone sat back around the table, and I went and grabbed some more beers out of the fridge (again, the same one I had left behind) and brought them through for us late-comers. As we opened them, Gee lifted his bottle and said "Welcome back Chloe. Let's hope you never leave again, and you have an awesome 18th." We clinked our bottles together, downed a mouthful and started talking.

It was a better night than I could have imagined.


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter Six**

October 26th

I woke up, and immediately wished I hadn't. I was in a room I didn't recognise, next to someone I didn't recognise, and with the mother of all hangovers. My head felt like it was going to implode, I ached all over and the smell of sulphuric acid and (for some reason) apples made me want to hurl even though my stomach was empty.

Not so good.

I lay on the bed for a few minutes, waiting for the room to stop spinning, and then I sat up and looked around me. Somehow, the room was still really tidy. Well, except for the puddle of sick that had clearly dripped down the painted white walls and onto the black carpet, and the small mountain of beer bottles, cans and shot glasses in the corner, and for that-

My face fell in horror, and I put my hand under my black fitted corset top, and sure enough, that was my bra hanging from the light. I blushed furiously, and nearly fainted as I stood up way too quickly. I grabbed my bra, and as I took off my top to put it back on the person in the bed next to me rolled over and looked at me.

It was Mikey.

I blushed even more, turned my back to him and covered up so he wouldn't see any of my exposed chest, and almost screamed "Mikey what the fuck are you doing in bed with me?" I then winced, my own shrill voice hurting my head. Mikey winced too, so clearly he had just as bad a hangover. I could see why I didn't recognise him; his once kinda brown hair had been dyed black, and his glasses were missing. He leant forwards and put his face in his hands. "Dude, what the fuck happened last night?" I quickly redressed, still as red as a tomato. "I have no idea, but I think we drank like fish." I left the room, and then heard "Ah shit Chloe, what the hell happened to my room?" Oh, well there's one mystery solved.

I walked into the living room, and found Frankie passed out on the couch lying in what I seriously hoped was a pool of warm beer, Gee was on the floor under the coffee table and Ray was curled up on the comfy chair, looking not too bad. Huh. Maybe Ray doesn't drink so much no more.

I sniffed the air, and underneath the rather repulsive smell of piss, stale beer, sweat and sulphuric acid, I could smell something good. Something familiar…

My eyes flew open. Bacon!

I wandered into the kitchen, and sure enough there was James, cooking bacon in the frying pan with a pile of toasted bagels on the table. He didn't hear me walk in, as the bacon was hissing and cackling at him, so I considered walking up behind him and making him jump. I decided against it, I didn't want my boyfriend to burn himself after all, so instead I just leant against the door and said "Knock knock. What's cooking?" He turned to look at me. "Hey, how's the head?" I walked over to him and wrapped my arms around him, leaving his arms free. "Don't even go there, man, I honestly thought my head was on fire the amount it hurts." He laughed a little, let go of the pan for a little while and returned my hug. "You'll feel better soon." I glared at him. "Easy for you to say, you never get hung over." He laughed again. "That's right, but at any rate I drank nowhere near as much as you did last night. And if it makes you feel better, you still look beautiful." He looked me in the eye, and I stuck my tongue out at him, making him laugh again. "Where'd you end up last night anyway?" I froze, unsure of what to tell him. I let go of him. "Uh, I woke up in bed with Mikey…" He gave me a concerned look, and I waited for him to get upset and yell. "Well, just make sure Alicia doesn't find out." And with that he turned his attention back to the bacon.

I stood there stunned. "Excuse me?" "Well, from what the guys were saying last night, she gets real jealous and pissy over the tiniest things. I can't believe he's still with her." I could sense some major gossip coming to the surface. I giggled, ran up to James, hugged one of his arms to my chest so he couldn't use it and said "Spill, or the bacon gets it!" He gasped in mock horror and said "Well apparently, they were practising in – is it Frank?" I nodded. "So yeah, they were practicing in Frank's garage, with the door open and stuff, and Alicia was there waiting for them to finish cos her and Mikey had a date. Anyway, this group of girls walked past and stopped to watch, and when the guys finished playing a couple of em walked over to Mikey and started flirting with him, you know, being really…" "Slutty?" I offered. He nodded. "Yeah, really throwing themselves at him. And Mikey, of course, said he had a girlfriend, wasn't interested, all that jazz. Then on their date, Alicia brought it up and got really pissed at him cos of it. Said she wanted a break and left. I don't think he's heard from her since, and that was a good couple of weeks ago." He took the bacon out of the pan and turned everything off. He sighed. "I know this is a bad thing to say, but maaan I'm glad he got with her." That made me laugh. "You're right, that is a bad thing to say. What makes you say it, anyway?" He pulled me into his arms and said "Cos then I wouldn't have met you." This made me giggle again, and I hid my face so he didn't see me blush. "Silly James." He kissed my hair, and said "Wanna take a shower?" I looked at him, and said in an offended tone "I don't smell that bad, do I?" and stuck my tongue out at him. He laughed, leant forward and kissed my neck, and murmered "I think you know what I meant." I giggled more, my head no longer aching but in a blissful mist.

"Guys, seriously, this is my kitchen, it's supposed to stay clean?" We both laughed at Gee's disgusted tone from the doorway, broke apart and I headed off to the bathroom, leaving Gee with James in the kitchen. I quickly shouted to them "I'm in the shower, and keep a bagel for me!" and ran off again.

As I neared the bathroom, Mikey came out of his room and almost bumped into me. He blushed and said "Uh Chlo, can I ask you something?" I stopped. "Sure Mikes, what's up?" "Uh, well it's just…" He sighed. "What were you doing this morning?" To this I blushed again, looked away and said "Well, somehow my bra had ended up hanging off the light, so I was putting it back on…" There was an awkward pause and said "I gotta go Mikes, I need a shower…" He stopped me again and said "Another awkward question. Last night. We didn't…" He blushed even more and looked away, and I got what he meant. "Mikey, I know I never do that when I'm drunk. Trust me, that never happened." He nodded, his face unreadable.

I headed to the bathroom again before he could ask me anything else, had a quick shower, got dressed and went back into the kitchen, to find literally one bagel left. No bacon. I sighed. "Guys, nice to know you take everything I say literally…" I shoved the bagel in my mouth after shouting this to anyone who could hear, and went looking for Alex and Keiko. Surely they wouldn't have been stupid enough to leave the house in a town they don't know?

I eventually found them both curled up together sleeping under the stairs. Looking at them you would think they were sisters or something; they both had black hair (at least Keiko's was partially black) they both had a cute young-ish face, and they both wore school-like blouses and short skirts. I sighed and shut the door on them. 'Better leave them to sleep, I'd like to stay alive after surviving that hell of a hangover.' I headed towards the living room and saw Frankie still asleep on the sofa but everyone else was up and chattering away.

"…and Frankie jumped onto me slurring 'Gee yoo know yur tha best fwend anyone cood assfur' and passes out on me, spilling his beer on me and everything!" Everyone started chuckling a little, and looked over to me when I walked in.

James laughed the hardest. "Hey, Mikes told us what happened this morning, thought you were all mine!" He smiled, so at least he was ok with it. I mean, it's not like anything happened anyway. But still… I went and sat on the floor next to him, and he put his arm around my shoulders. "So you're ok with everything that happened?" I murmured in his ear. He looked at me, kisses my forehead and said "Chloe, I know what you're like when you're drunk. Believe me, I know nothing would have happened."

I rested my head on his shoulder and closed my eyes. I'm so glad I came back.


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter Seven**

October 31st

So apparently, to make up for me ditching the guys, it was my turn to host the Halloween party. The guys had given me the keys back for my house, and I had spent the last week stocking up on sweets, decorations, and all sorts of odds and ends.

The party was in an hour, and I was just getting into my costume. I was kinda nervous about this party. I mean, I had put in loads of effort for this night, and I was worried that the others wouldn't do the same. Last year, Gee had come in his skeleton outfit and Mikey hadn't bothered. The year before that, Gee had come in his skeleton outfit and Mikey hadn't bothered. The year before that- well, you get the picture. I looked in the mirror to check my costume looked ok. I was wearing a black fitted dress which flowed out at my hips, with a slit down one side and a red layer underneath, netting around the bust and between the red and black layers of the dress. I wore a red rose in my black slightly curled hair, wore very pale foundation and deep black eyeliner.

As time arrived at 8pm, I adjusted the flower in my hair and heard the doorbell ringing away. James shouted through from the bathroom "Shit, are they here already? I haven't even got my outfit on!" I sighed. "Don't worry, I'll stall them and you can make your grand entrance later." I walked past the bathroom on my way to the door, and saw James bent over the sink and looking in the mirror with an expression between frustration and concentration. He was messing with his long platinum blonde hair, trying to get his fringe to stay in place, and I couldn't help but laugh. He looked over at me. "What's so funny?" "You're such a girl!" I laughed more and ran out of the bathroom before he could grab me. I shouted down the hall to Alex and Keiko (they were staying in the spare bedroom) "You girls better be ready in there, everyone else is here!" I got to the door and opened it, and what I saw rendered me speechless.

Gee was at the front of the crowd. He was wearing a black military style outfit, with silver buttons and detail. He was carrying a thin, silver baton in one hand and a black hat with a silver design in the other. He had makeup on his face too, to make his face look like the skull of a skeleton.

Behind Gee was Frankie, who wore a white shirt, a red tie and black trousers, but wore a bulletproof vest over the top of it all, and had a gun in his hand. He wore red eyeshadow and eyeliner, and had black crosses drawn over his eyes. His hair was black and long in the middle, but he had the sides cut very short and dyed red.

Ray came next, dressed in an old soldier's outfit. He wore the brown trousers and jacket, and black boots, with a white armband with a red cross, and the same on his helmet. He had come as one the of the medic soldiers from the World Wars, and he had even tamed the 'fro for this occasion.

And Mikey came as a unicorn. Enough said.

Now that everyone was here (yeah by party I mean just us guys getting together) we all went into the living room, Ray and Frankie headed straight for the food, Gee went over to the stereo to put on some good music, and Mikey came into the kitchen with me to grab some beers out the fridge. We didn't say anything to each other, just grabbed the beers and went back to the living room. Clearly it was gonna take a while to go back to besties.

When we got back to the living room, I saw Alex and Keiko had come out of their room, and they were dressed as zombie schoolgirls. I sighed. I shouldn't have been surprised really, it's all they every wear. Gee Frankie and Ray were on the sofa, and Alex was sitting in one of the comfy chairs with Keiko on her knee. Mikey and I put the beers on the table, and over the music and chatter we heard James yelling "Ok, I'm finally ready!" Drama Queen.

We all turned to watch as he walked into the room. He had dressed in a black shirt with a white clerical collar and black trousers. Gee laughed when he saw him, and Frankie asked "Dude, why the hell are you a vicar?" "Well, you see how pale Chloe has her makeup?" Everyone nodded, and I blushed. Thankfully you couldn't tell and it stayed hidden under my foundation. James continued "See, Chloe's dressed as a ballerina at her funeral, and her coffin is in the corner over there." He waved vaguely. "I'm the guy that's running her funeral, and you guys are those who came to pay your respects; a skeleton, a gunner, a soldier, a unicorn and a couple of schoolgirls…" He laughed as he trailed off, and said "Man, I never thought I'd say that in my life."

We started drinking, although I made sure not to drink anywhere near as much as last week. We watched some scary films, scared all the trick-and-treaters shitless, and generally just chilled. It was Keiko who had the great idea.

"You know what guys, I think we should make a movie."

We all laughed, and she got pissed when we didn't take her seriously. "Guys don't you think it'd be cool?" Mikey giggled a little. "It would be fun, but it sure wouldn't be cool." "Not that we have that to worry about anyway" said Gee. Everyone murmured in agreement, and Ray said "Maybe we don't make movies, but I think it might be a good idea to make some music videos." Everyone went quiet and looked at him. "I mean, seriously, we need to get out there, need to get recognised. Why don't we make some music videos and put them on the internet? People will be able to see us performing, we might even get spotted!" Nobody said a word, we all just looked at him. Until Frank said "Dude, you are a fucking genius!" and pounced on him. Keiko still looked pissed, but probably more because Frankie didn't give her any credit.

We started talking about their songs, which ones they'd do first, and what they'd do for each. Me and James sat together and quietly commented on things we'd change or do differently, giggling every so often. After a while of talking, Mikey left to go to the bathroom, and everyone else just carried on. Time went by and I noticed he still hadn't come back.

"James I'm just gonna go look for Mikes 'kay? I won't be long." I kissed his forehead and left. I looked all over the house and couldn't find him anywhere. I went out into the garden, and found him sitting between the patch of trees at the back. As I walked over I saw he was on the phone to someone. I stopped, but I could still hear snatches of the conversation.

"…don't want anything now. It's ruined." He paused as whoever was on the other end spoke. "No I don't care. No. No. I just- No. No! Of course not, how can you even say that?" He paused again. "No of course that's not true, just fuck off out of my life you stupid bitch!" And with that outburst he hung up his mobile. He stayed hunched over for a little while, and then he stood up, wiped at his face and started walking back. He stopped dead when he saw me, and I could see he had been crying. I said nothing, just walked up to him and embraced him. He hugged me back, and started crying again. Neither of us said anything, we just stayed like that for a while, me comforting him.

I don't know how we ended up on the floor, but after a while we were back in the trees. Mikes had stopped crying but still had his arms around me and his head resting on my shoulder, and I had one arm around him and my head resting on his.

"Do you wanna tell me what just happened?" He shook his head. "Ok Mikey, whenever you're ready. I'll be here for you." He sighed and said "Well if I don't tell you now I never will. I think you gathered that was Alicia." His bottom lip wobbled and I squeezed him closer. He took a deep breath. "I've ended things with her properly now, I couldn't stand waiting for her to make her mind up. And…" He started crying again. "And I think she's been cheating on me." He started gasping, his breath coming in short, sharp intakes. "I- I rang her earlier and sh- she didn't answer me f-for hours. And when she d- did answer it wasn't her. It w-was some guy." He broke down at this point and buried his face in my neck. I hugged him again and said "I can't believe I'm about to stand up for this bitch, but Mikes maybe it wasn't what you think." He sniffled a little. "I- I know. I just- just can't think anything else…" We didn't say anything else again, and soon Mikey fell asleep with his head on my shoulder. I slowly took my phone out of my pocket and rang James' mobile. He answered.

"Hey Chlo, where'd you go? You're missing the partyyyy!" I shushed him and whispered "I'm outside with Mikey, but he's fallen asleep. When he wakes up I'll drive him back to his place and then I'll come back ok?" "Ok, it's you that's missing out after all!" And he hung up. He was tipsy, which is generally as far as James goes.

I sighed, and felt Mikey stir next to me. "Huh? I fell asleep?" I giggled and cuddled him again. "You sure did Mikes, but don't worry I'll take you home so you can rest." We stood up and walked over to my car, hearing the music blaring out of the house as we walked past. I took the keys out of my pocket, got in the car and drove off.

On the way to Mikey and Gerard's place we didn't really say a lot. After a while I heard him murmur something.

"What was that Mikes?" He coughed a little. "I just said that I'd missed this." I glanced over at him and saw him looking at me. I turned my eyes back to the road. "What do you mean, you've missed getting your heart and mind fucked with?" He giggled a little at that. "No silly, I mean I've missed this. Us being best friends." He went quiet. "I've missed you."

There was an awkward silence, and I blushed furiously. I cleared my throat. "I've missed you too Mikes. BFFs?" I giggled and looked over at him to see him with a big grin on his face. He nodded. "BFFs."

We soon pulled up outside his house, and Mikey got out of the car. He walked halfway up the path to his house, then he stopped , turned back, leant in the car through the driver's window (I always had it open) and said "Chlo, do you maybe wanna stay over tonight?" I thought about it. "Well I'm supposed to be hosting a party Mikes…" I sighed as he pulled a pleading face. "Mikey that's not fair, you know I can't say no to that. I have to though!" I started laughing as he gave me his best puppy-dog eyes, wobbly bottom lip and sniffle-y noises. "Fine Mikey you win! I'll stay with you." He jumped up and hugged me as I got out the car. "But there's one condition!" He looked at me. "Oh?" "If Gee manages to get back, I'm going home. Ok?" He thought about it. "Fine." We started walking up to the house. "I guess I'll just have to lock you in my room then." He stuck his tongue out at me, and ran ahead. I sighed and followed him in.


	8. Chapter 8

**Chapter Eight**

December 7th

After a few weeks, everything was back to normal. Well, as close as it could get anyway. We all went to college, as usual (turns out Gee and Ray had decided to start again and do more courses), Alex and Keiko had decided college wasn't for them, and so when we were at college they had gotten jobs and were usually working. James had also gotten a job teaching drums at the college, so he came and hung out with us when we all had a break.

Today I had no lessons, but neither did Gee, and Mikey, Frankie and Ray had a couple of breaks so I went in to town anyway and just hung out with Gee all day. I went to the hair salon first thing in the morning, and came out with a completely new hair style. I put the hood of my hoodie up so nobody could see; I wanted to give Gee a shock when he saw me.

I was walking through town making my way to the field outside college when I spotted a guy walking towards me. Nobody usually walked down here, cos it's where loads of people have been mugged, stabbed and even killed, so this really unsettled me. His hair was black and straightened, but I could just see that the underside of his hair had been dyed blood red. And to make matters worse (or better, depending how you look at it) he was absolutely smoking hot. I tried not to look at him while he walked past me, but I was concentrating so hard on not looking at him I didn't realise how windy it was, and my hood got blown down by the wind. He looked right at me as I cursed and kept walking, blushing furiously as I felt his eyes watching me pass him. He walked past me, and I looked back at him trying to see if his hair was actually red underneath. I saw that it was, but I also saw him look back at me and check me out, which made me blush even more and walk away faster.

I got to the field without any other incidents, with my hood back in place, and I saw Gee sitting near one of the clumps of trees with James. I walked up to them, Gee spotted me and yelled over "Hey Chlo, where you been all this time? Thought we were gonna hang out all morning?" I stuck my tongue out at him, then said "Gee, I've only been away for like an hour or so, and anyway I was at the hair salon." I went and sat next to James, who put one arm around my waist and gave me a quick peck on the lips and said "Do we get to see, or is it to remain a mystery, never to be solved?" I giggled and was about to pull down my hood when I saw Mikey and Frankie walking towards us with someone I didn't recognise. I took James' arm from around my waist, ran up to the guys and gave Mikey a massive bear hug. "Mikeeeeeeeeey! Hi!" I yelled into his shoulder, and he giggled, returned the hug and said "Hey Chloe, why so happy?" "Cos my best friend's just come out of his lesson, why else?" "I thought Gee had today off?" I pulled an expression of mock horror and hit his arm lightly. "Mikey you know I'm talking about you. Silly boy." I then turned my attention to Frankie and the new guy. Frankie was just being Frankie, paying no attention to us and trying to sneak up on Gee who was just sitting talking to James, so I said hi to the new guy. He had short brown hair and a small amount of brown stubble on his chin and jawline. His eyes were a very deep brown and when he wasn't smiling, gave him a serious, almost untrusting, aura. He was wearing dark grey baggy jeans, a loose white t-shirt and a black leather jacket.

"Hey, I'm Chloe. Dunno if Mikes has said anything about me, but we've been besties for years." The new guy laughed, and said in a deep voice "So you're the famous Chloe, huh?" I gave him a confused look, which just made him laugh more. "Mikey here wouldn't stop talking about all you guys during our lesson together, you in particular. It was a very strange first History lesson anyway. I'm Shannon by the way, laugh and I'll punch you." I kept a straight face and said "Shannon? Awesome, but now you've told me not to laugh I really need to." And burst out laughing. He laughed too, grabbed me in a headlock and said "What's with the hood anyway, you gonna mug me?" I couldn't stop laughing, so instead he let me go and pulled my hood down to reveal my new hair.

Mikey stopped dead and said "Woah, when did that happen?" I laughed even more, and Gee, Frankie and James looked over to see what was so funny. "Shit Chlo, that's your new hair? That's fucking awesome!" Said Gee, Frankie just looked at me, shrugged his shoulders and proceeded to pounce on Gee. James stood up and walked over to me, ran his fingers through my hair and said "Blue actually really suits you." I giggled and kissed him. "Yeah, black got boring for me, everyone started doing it. And this way, you'll never lose me." Shannon chimed in with "You know, my brother would love you." And started laughing again.

We all sat outside on the field again, chatting and getting to know Shannon Leto. He had lived in America for most of his life, but recently when his parents got divorced, him, his brother Jared and his sister Lyra left and came over to the UK, pursuing their life ambition to start a band and make it big. Pretty soon Ray rang my mobile, and it took a whole 3 minutes of Nyancat to find it in the bottom of my bag, hidden under my books, sketch books, and various other art necessities. I answered it quickly; I was getting The Glare off Gee, who absolutely hates Nyancat. "Moshi moshi, hi there Ray! What's up?" I heard his voice through the speaker "Yeah, mosh whatever, where are you guys right now? Lucy let us out of Music early, and wondering if you and Gee were in Starbucks again?" "Naaah man, we're all out on the field at the moment, you gonna meet us here or shall we head over to Starbucks?" "Well we'll meet you there, it won't take long. Seeya." And he hung up. I closed my phone and said to the guys "They're gonna be along in a sec, apparently they were let out of Music early." "Wait, who's 'us'?" Frankie said. "Well Ray and-" I looked around us, and realised Ray was the only one missing, except Alex and Keiko, but they were at work. I shrugged. "Maybe that girl finally asked him out? Or maybe he actually asked her?" Everyone laughed at that. We waited there a few more minutes, and then Mikey said "Well, unless he's on the other side of the fence, he hasn't got a date." We all looked over to where he was looking, and we saw Ray walking towards us with another guy. He was a little shorter than Ray (but then, who wasn't?), was wearing black jeans, a white top with two crosses on it, one upside down, and a deep blue jacket. He had long black hair, but as he got closer the wind blew up his hair, and I could see flashes of red. I gasped, immediately recognising him from before, and James looked at me. "Chloe, what's up?" he asked. "I-uh it's nothing. It's just- I saw him earlier, when I was coming back from the hair salon, and I saw him looking at me…" As soon as I said it, I knew I shouldn't have, as James' face grew serious, which it very rarely did, and I saw him watching the new guy walking up to us very carefully. The others hadn't noticed what was going on, and Shannon cried out "Hey Jared, how'd you find this one?" The guy laughs and says "I could ask you the same thing." Ray looks at him and asks "You guys know each other?" "Sure, haha, he's my lil bro!" Shannon cried out. Ray laughed. "Ah man, what a coincidence. Guys this is Jared, Jared that's Gee," He pointed him out and Gee raised his hand as if to say 'hi there'. "That's Mikey, Frankie, James, and-" He stopped dead when he saw me. "Chloe, what the fuck happened to your hair?" I started giggling, then Jared said "Hey, blueberry girl! I like your style!" We all laughed a little, but James just sat there looking at him with a wary and mistrustful expression. I noticed this, so I quickly kissed him on his cheek, and then he turned to look at me and kissed me on the lips gently. I rested my head on his shoulder and we all just sat there for a while talking about nothing.


	9. Chapter 9

**Chapter Nine**

We all headed over to Starbucks, where Keiko was working. As we walked through the door we saw her flirting with a guy our age at the till, and started wolf-whistling and trying to embarrass her. She looked over, gave us a rather rude gesture and proceeded to give the guy her number. He grabbed his coffee and went to leave, til Jared called him over. "Hey Kyle, who knew you'd pull already?" The guy named Kyle laughed and said "I know right? Lucky me." We all sat down at a table and a few of us went to order our drinks, and we started chatting again. We had our drinks, and after a while most of them needed to get back to college for their next lessons. Gee, Jared, Frank and I didn't have a lesson now, so we decided to head over to Jared's place where he said Gee and Frankie could practice a new song they were working on. He had a large back room where he kept his guitars and Shannon's drums, so Frankie borrowed one of his guitars and they started working on the song. Jared and I watched for a little while, then I went to his kitchen to grab myself a drink. I started looking around for cans of Coke or something.

"Need a hand there?" I jumped out of my skin and swore at him. "Jared that is not fucking funny, you trying to send me to an early grave?" He laughed at my scowl, then walked over to me and gave me a hug. I stood there awkwardly; I don't usually let people hug me until I'm really comfortable with them, so getting a hug off someone I'd known for a couple of hours? Not so good. He noticed I wasn't returning the hug, and murmured "What's up?" in my ear. "Uh, I'm not really a hugging kinda person." I said quietly. He moved as if to stop, so I started to relax, and then I felt him very lightly kiss my cheek.

I completely froze, felt my heart start beating twice as fast and the adrenaline rush through my veins. What was going on? I felt him pulling away from me and look me in the eye, and I immediately looked away. I mumbled something, I don't even know what I said, and I got myself out of there before he'd try something else. I yelled up to the stairs "Gerard, Frank, I'm going home, I'll see you later." And I walked towards the door without even looking at Jared.

As I was leaving, another girl was standing outside the door with a key in her hand, and we both jumped when we saw each other. She had long brown hair, was slightly taller than me and wore a black vest top with grey skinny jeans. I muttered "Sorry," and looked down. I could see Jared standing behind me in the corner of my eye. "Oh hey Lyra. Chlo this is my twin sister Lyra, Lyra this is Chloe." I nodded my head. "Hi, sorry I was just leaving." "Oh sure, nice to meet you Chloe." I saw her giving Jared a stern look, and I walked out the door.

"Jared, what the hell have you done now?" Lyra seemed pretty pissed at me. I pulled my best innocent expression. "What? I haven't done anything! Why do you always assume I've done something?" "Well when a girl is trying to get out of the house with an expression like that, what am I supposed to think? Did you try something with her again?" I looked away refusing to say a word. Not that I needed to. "You did, didn't you? Jared, you've gotta learn to keep that thing in your pants, remember how many close calls you've already had?" She slammed her books down on the kitchen worktop as I just walked away ignoring her. "Jared, I swear I'm gonna KILL you one day!" She screamed after me.


	10. Chapter 10

I tried to avoid Jared as much as possible from then on. Which was difficult, considering he had decided he wanted to transfer into almost all of my classes. The only class he wasn't in was my Further Maths class, and that was only cos we were too far into the course for him to start now. And even worse, in both my Human Biology and Pure Maths class he had decided to sit in the always empty seat next to me. The one thing I could be thankful for is he didn't make it uncomfortable for me; he seemed to have realised he shouldn't have done what he did and he started acting normal again. And whenever my lessons finished I always asked James to come and meet me, even if it was for 5 minutes, just so Jared would see that I was with him and nobody else.

As me and Jared were walking out of Human Biology, we saw his twin sister Lyra waiting for him.

"Hey Chloe. Jared we need to go home now." She spoke with an authorative tone, and I could see Jared wasn't happy at being told what to do. "Why should I? I'm older than you, I should be telling you what to do. Anyway, I'm hanging out with Chloe and Mikey for lunch." "You're older by a minute, don't think that counts!" Lyra sighed. "Look, I'm not doing this to be spiteful but we really need to leave. Now." Jared studied her, and suddenly I could see a glistening in her eyes and her bottom lip wobbling slightly. Jared must have also seen this, as he put his arms around her and they started murmuring to each other. I didn't want to seem like I was eavesdropping, so I walked away and started to study the posters on the walls about bacteria and viruses. After a few minutes I heard Jared call "Chlo, sorry to ditch you but I really gotta go." I turned to see him looking at me with a blank expression on his face and his arm around Lyra, who seemed to be trying not to cry. I just nodded and said "No worries, let me know if there's anyway I can help, 'kay?" He didn't seem to listen, gave me an apologetic shrug and they walked off down the corridor.

I left, putting a headphone in one ear and pressing "Shuffle" on my iPod. A few seconds into The Super Happy Fun Club's song 'London' I felt a hand grab my arm. I jumped, turned around and saw James, Mikey and Frankie standing behind me laughing. I took my headphone out. "Guys, what the hell are you playing at! You scared the life out of me." James flashed one of his stunning smiles at me, and before I knew it I was wrapped in his arms in a swift but sweet embrace.

Frankie grinned at me. "We were shouting you from the other end of the corridor, silly. You made us look like morons!" I grinned back. "At least now everybody else knows what you are, not just me." He pretended to be hurt, wiped away a non-existent tear and Mikey said "Hey, do you know what was up with the Letos? We saw them walking in the opposite direction, didn't seem to recognise us when we said hi, kept walking. That sister, Laura? She was crying, do you know anything?" I shook my head. "Everything was fine until Jared and I came out of Biology, we saw Lyra standing there, she said they had to go, they had a little fight but then Jared stopped being an idiot and they left. That's all I know." Mikey looked down at me, trying to figure out if I was telling the truth or not, and I seemed to pass. He nodded, and said "Anyway, I guess they'll tell us when they're ready." We all nodded, although I had some difficulty as I was resting my head against James' chest, and then Frankie chirped up.

"Where are we gonna go for food? I'm starving." And right on cue, his stomach roared in agreement.

When we got to Subway Frankie stormed in through the door, shortly followed by James, Mikey and I still laughing amongst ourselves. We got some food, chatted about anything, and then someone's phone started ringing. We all checked our phones and found it was Ray's going off.

"Hey, Toro here." He paused as the other person spoke. "Sure Shannon, what's up? ... What? Oh ok, well give me a ring when you know what's happening dude. Ciao." He hung up and turned to see us all watching him intently. He sighed "No, I don't know what's going on. He told me to tell our tutor Gareth that he won't be coming to class for a while." He shrugged and we all just sat there and ate our lunch in silence.

For the next few weeks I sat alone at my desk in all of my classes. It was strange, but I actually missed having Jared sitting next to me, chatting away about our shared music interests, poking me to piss me off. I sighed and just got on with my work, both earphones in my ears constantly. Things got back to how it was before the Letos joined us, but there were more silences that showed there was something missing. It really got to me.

One day I was waiting for James to finish teaching while everyone else had lessons or exams. I was sitting on the bandstand in the park outside the college, the only person around.

'_Where have you gone?'_


	11. Chapter 11

January 29th

'_Ugh this takes the piss.'_ I was sitting in my Pure Maths class (the only one at my table, as usual), trying to figure out how the hell I was supposed to multiply these frigging matrices. I took one earbud out of my ear and looked around the classroom to find the tutor, but of course she was nowhere to be seen. I sighed to myself and looked around to see what everyone else was doing and groaned inwardly. They were so far behind me (I usually teach myself at home too so I learn everything faster and move ahead of the class), so I pulled out my phone and searched for 'multiplying matrices'. I found a site explaining what to do, and managed to answer the first few questions before someone's alarm went off on their phone. We always set them because more often than not the tutor doesn't come back before our lesson ends and there's no bell to signify the ends of lessons. We all started packing up our things and headed out the classroom, and I headed over to the college library to meet everyone.

I walked over to the table we usually meet at, but found out there was another guy sitting there, with his head resting on top of his arms on the table and his hood up. I mumbled a 'sorry man' and turned away, before I heard him sit up and say "Chlo?" I looked back and saw it was Shannon under the hood, but he looked different. His face was paler, he had shadows under his eyes and he just looked… ill. There was no other way to describe it. "Shannon? Shit, what the hell happened to you man? You look…" He gave a tired laugh. "I know, I know, I'm a fucking mess. I think I've come off worst from all of this." He sighed and put his head back on his arms. "Shan, what's going on? You guys just randomly disappear for over a month, and when you come back you look like hell, I'm seriously worried about you." He just sat there for a while, and then he said "It's my parents," he paused and then murmered "My mom wants us all to move back to America, and now apparently our dad wants custody of us. But either way, they want us back over there… They've even said that is we don't move back before March then they're not giving us any money to stay here…" He swallowed. "Jared's taking it the hardest, even though he doesn't show it on the outside, but that's why he hasn't come back to college yet, but me and Lyra are trying to find some way we can stay here without their money. But it's not looking good…" He put his head back on his arms and sighed deeply. "It's been so stressful none of us have really taken care of ourselves." I sat down next to him, put an arm around him and said "We'll figure something out." He looked at me out of the corner of his eye. "We?" I nodded. "There's no way I'm letting you guys go through this and not help, and I know everyone else will feel the same." He turned to give me a hug, and murmured to me "Thanks Chlo, but don't tell anyone ok? We'll let people know when we're ready." I nodded again, and I sat with him and cheered him up until James, Frankie and Ray came and sat with us.


	12. Chapter 12

February 9th

"Lyra! Lyra!" I kept running after her, trying and failing to yell her name, my bag banging into the backs of my knees. I try again. "Lyra!" She still doesn't hear me. I'm gasping for air, but I'm catching up to her, and before I know it she's right in front of me and I'm still running at full speed. I try to stop but still end up bumping her, and she turns to see who it is that's oh-so-rudely pushed into her. When she sees it's me her blue eyes soften and she smiles at me. "Hey, what was all that about? You almost squished me!" She says as she pulls out her headphones. I put my hands on my knees and try to catch my breath. "You… had earphones? … I've been yelling… all the way… down the… street…" I managed to spit out in between gasps of breath. "And running… lots of running…" I stand up to see Lyra laughing at me. "Okay, okay, what was so important that you got yourself into this state?" She says while laughing. I stand up, grab a bunch of paper out of my bag and say "I've been doing some digging around for you guys, I didn't wanna tell you until it was pretty much finalised buuuuuuut…" I spread a massive grin over my face, "I've found you guys a place to stay!"

The shining in her eyes seems to dim a little and her expression goes a little flat. "Oh… Look Chloe, it's nice of you to try and find somewhere for us, but there's just no way we're going to afford it. We have literally no money and finding jobs has been so difficult with college… We're just gonna go back to America…" I shake my head "No you don't get it, I don't mean just for you three, look at this." I turn the pages to the one I was looking for. "This is a print out of the emails I've exchanged with the landlord, I've explained our problem, and he's saying that even though it's a two-bed flat, he's willing to let no more than 6 of us stay there and keep quiet about it. Well, as long as we're good residents of course." Lyra doesn't seem any more cheery about it, so I carry on. "Lyra, all three of you can live there, and three of us can live with you to help pay the rent! He's not going to charge us extra for more people, as long as we can get it sorted and the rest of us pay the rent, you can stay!" That cheers her up. "Are you serious? He actually said that? That's amazing!" I smile again. "I know right? I'll call the guy now and see if he can let us go see it, I've been before and trust me, you are going to LOVE it!" I take out my mobile, dial his number and wait for him to answer.


End file.
